The Betrayal
by akm52
Summary: This story is set before the events of Portal I, and does not include any events or information revealed in Portal II. Beverly and John are together and happy, or so she thinks, before a jealous Doug tries to intervene and ends up causing a chain of events he wasn't ready for.
**Beverly**

"I love you Mom," I managed to choke out, before ending the call.

"Everything okay?" John asked from behind me. I took a moment to collect myself before turning around and answering,

"Yes."

But I knew he knew better. Sometimes I felt as though he could see right into me when he looked me in the eyes. But this time, he didn't have to look far. My eyes were still red and glistening from the tears that I had failed to hold back.

"Want to go get some cake?"

I smiled. Cake was always our go-to for…well…anything. We'd had celebration cake whenever we'd hit a milestone at the lab, frustration cake for when those milestones quickly turned into roadblocks, casual cake, sad cake, romance cake…cake is to us as alcohol is to most normal people. Then again, it made perfect sense, as we were far from normal.

Anything having to do with Aperture Science Inc. could never be classified as normal. You know how growing up, you have all those questions as a child and wish that one-day you'll be able to figure out the secrets to the world? Well, my wish came true. And really, it was an honor to now be on the other side of things, creating the secrets that children wish they could learn. But sometimes, I wish we could get the recognition for it. Not that I want a Nobel Peace Prize or anything, but I want to at least be able to tell my mom, so make her proud of me, one last time.

The pressures of our job, as well as the pressures of hiding so much of our lives from our families...well, let's just say it made being normal really difficult. And now, I couldn't even be with my mom in her last moments. Sometimes I wondered if this was all worth it. But that was a ridiculous thought. I knew it was. And, still looking at the hazel eyes staring back at me, I knew that I would do it all over again just to be with John. The thought was frightening.

He raised his eyebrows at me. I still hadn't answered him. I wondered what he saw in my eyes, with all of the different emotions running through me right now.

He made the decision for us, grabbed my arms, and steered me towards the door.

 **John**

"Wait, I have to stop by my room and grab a jacket. The Center says it's cold outside." Beverly said, as soon as we'd stepped out into the Pitt.

I glanced at the tall cylindrical structure in the center (appropriately enough) of the hall that bore this information. It was our only connection to the outside world outside of Observation Hours, the only time we were allowed to go up ourselves. Strictly speaking, we were only supposed to go for scientific purposes, to inspect materials in person, and gather data, because too much personal interaction with our work material could cloud our analysis, and therefore, our work, which was the only thing Aperture cared about. But they also knew that no one really followed that rule. They didn't care, so long as our work was pristine and delivered on time.

"Are you sure that's the only reason you want to stop by your room?" I responded, winking.

She gave me a side-glance, a look she reserved for when she didn't want to feed too much into my ego, but was reluctant to tear it down just the same. Her eyes were still red. I already knew why, of course, but I also knew that she would probably tell me herself after eating some cake. I was a professional at pretending to not know things I already knew. We all were, it was the nature of our job. But my need to know everything had always gotten me in trouble, even as a child. That's how I'd learned the power that came with knowing things no one knew you knew. That feeling of having information bouncing around inside of your mind, and using it to pretend, to manipulate, and to achieve your desires, it was enthralling. It was this passion that had brought me to where I am today, and it was also what was going to bring me to heights no one had ever reached before. I couldn't help but smile at the prospects that lay ahead.

Beverly was still looking at me, and she smiled back, and shut the door to her room firmly in my face. I smirked, as I waited for her to come back outside.

An object on the ground caught my eye. I picked it up a cube, with pink hearts on the outside. I shook my head, as anger whipped through me. Rattmann.

I tried to open it, more out of annoyance than anything, knowing that I would never be able to. He had programmed it so that it would only open up to her eyes. There had to be a sensor somewhere-.

Beverly opened the door. She paused, midway through putting on her jacket, and took in the sight in front of her.

"Oh, here, I'll take that." She blushed, and took the cube out of my hand.

"Stop. Open it."

"Do I have to?" She wouldn't even look at me.

"Yes."

She held up the cube, adjusted the sides, and stared at two of the hearts. Ten seconds later, the cube whimpered and opened up, revealing a folded letter, and a picture frame. She glanced up at me, before looking down at the letter, reading it.

"He's left you these before, hasn't he? You knew exactly how to open it."

"Yes, John, look, it doesn't mean anything—"

"What's the picture frame for? Do you have a picture together?"

"No, of course not! It—it's for a picture of my mom and me…to…so I can…"

"How do you know?"  
She snapped her head up "That's enough. You'll just have to trust me." She gathered the stuff inside of the cube and took it back inside her room. When she came back out, we went back through the Pitt towards the elevator, that turned off our cochlear implants, and transported us up and into the outside world.

Beverly had been right, it was brisk out. We walked our usual route over to the cake shop in silence, as I let her get lost in her thoughts.

I walked, taken a bit off guard. I had let my anger get the best of me. I knew she was upset, that wasn't the right time to question her, I should have done it later. But this means that she and Rattmann were still talking, even after I told her not to. He loved her, that much was obvious, but I didn't care about that. I wasn't jealous. unlike what I had to play this whole ridiculous ordeal off as. Beverly would never love anyone but me. No, it was that Rattmann knew way too much. He was the only person that I couldn't seem to fool, and it angered me. I didn't know how much he knew about my plans, but I knew it was too much already. He knew way too much.

I ordered some Mango cake with strawberry whip-based frosting, Beverly's favorite. I brought over 2 forks and finally, broke the silence.

"So, you want to tell me what's going on?"

She took a deep breath, and looked at me, with a question in her eyes. I stared back, and I saw something settle inside them.

"It's my mom. The doctors have said she's maxed out her chemo treatments. If they go any further, her autoimmune system will start attacking itself because of the Ter-mutation in her white blood cells. They've given her 2 days to live."

"I'm sorry, Bev. I'm so sorry." I said. Of course, I had already heard all of this through her phone output transmitter, but I nodded, looking sympathetic, and non-probing, encouraging her to continue.

Tears outlined her eyes and she swallowed with effort. "It's okay. We knew it was coming, I just wish I could be there with her."

"Maybe they'd make an exception if you try talking to them?" I knew

perfectly well that there was no chance of that.

"No. You know what they're going to say." One reluctant tear left a trail running down her cheek, and she quickly wiped it away.

"It's okay, really. It's life. Funny really, how we spend the entire first half of your lifetime being raised and completely dependent on people, who, more often than not, don't exist in the second-"

I tuned out. Beverly was quite philosophical when she wanted to be, but her ideas tended to be repetitive. I thought about Rattmann. I needed a solution for this guy.

"-thing you know? You have your own kids, and your kids won't ever know this part of your life. And Mom…well, she'll never even know you—"

"—you know I wouldn't have been able to meet her regardless."

"Yeah. I know." She went silent. She didn't like talking about my family in the outside world, or even acknowledging that they existed. It was something that I didn't understand about her. My life outside of Aperture was separate from my life in it; the emotions were separate, everything fit neatly into its box. She always had this need to blur the lines. But I had brought this topic up for a reason. Our families knew nothing about our work, our lives here. They couldn't. I knew that was part of why she was so upset about her mom; it was the same reason Aperture would never let her go see her especially right now: she temptation to give in, to spill all of our secrets to someone on her death bed.—it was too much.

There was one day when those lines were tested, where the scientists' lives crossed on purpose. Aperture says they do it in order to maintain their image façade in front of the government, but I think it's their own experiment that they like to conduct on their experts. Mess with us; see how well we can continue acting, pretending, even when everything is under our family's noses.

"Tomorrow is bring your daughter to work day." I said, watching her carefully.

She looked back at me. "I know."

I looked at her in surprise. "This is the first year that you've known about this beforehand. You usually don't pay attention to this sort of stuff."  
She looked away, refusing to meet my eyes. "Rattmann mentioned it in his letter."

"Ah. I see."

"He mentioned something else, too, about tomorrow. I wanted to bring this up as well, and I guess now is as good a time as any."  
She knew too much. Way too much.

 **Doug Rattmann**

We had been under lockdown for four days.

She had opened my cube five days ago. I thought about the 4-beat melody that played in my cochlear implant then and got goosebumps. I had definitely classically conditioned myself to feeling a sense of joy every time that melody played. It was an unintentional side-affect, but it was powerful, just the same. Each time it played, each time she opened one of my cubes, I could practically feel her eyes clamping down on the hearts that I make for her. The melody rang, as she looked at my literal love for her. Each of those hearts contained a tiny percentage of my heart tissue from the self-biopsy set that I had been working on. When I finally declare my love for her openly, I can tell her that she has literally taken my heart— _if I ever see her again_.

That thought was ridiculous. She might never look the same again, but it was still her. Everything I loved about Beverly had to do with her intelligence, her wit, her humor, none of that is lost. I could still bring her back. Once things calmed down a bit.

A muffled scream rang through the back corridor, originating from the left wing cell. I sighed, and went to the back, opening up the small trap window to the door covered in my hearts. All of my doors had those on them.

"I have stated no less than 83 times now, there is no use in screaming! The walls of this room and every room in this compound are sound proof."

I looked down at the girl in front of me. She was just a normal teenager, nothing out of the ordinary. But every time I looked at her, a feeling of hate cracked through me, like electricity traveling through my veins. She looked just like her father.

She had been crying again. I strolled over to the kitchen to get a glass of water. I chose a cup that didn't have any hearts on it.

"Drink this. You'll dehydrate yourself if you don't stop. And I will not have you dying on me. I'm not a killer." _Not like your father._

She's not dead, damn it. Stop thinking like that. The memory booster I'd added to her ancillary hard drive had worked. She had remembered me. She had remembered my hearts. I knew it had been her. I knew that that bastard John had done it.

He'd come back that night with Bev unconscious in his arms, and told everyone that she had wanted to run away, that she'd decided that her family was more important than her job. It was a death sentence before he could even finish telling his story. And what a story it was. He had known that it was common knowledge that Bev's mom was sick; Bev had been beating herself up about it for weeks. She'd even missed several days of work. Aperture hadn't been too happy with her, and this was the perfect excuse he needed. He knew he was reading off her death sentence with every word that he uttered; but he knew what he was doing.

I had tried to warn her. To show her the truth behind the face that she loved. But it had backfired, and now he'd turned on her.

He had taken away the person I loved most in the world.

 _Tried to take away._

It wasn't enough for that he'd had her love. But now he dared sacrifice her for his messed up project. And of course, Aperture had supported him. The Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System now had its "Lifeform" component. They didn't know what I had done though. They knew something was wrong of course, which is why we'd been under lockdown for four days, but they would never be able to figure it out. The serum I'd given her was of my own invention. They would have to deal with the consequences of their actions.

A change in the room behind me caught my eye. The red light on the doors had turned to green. The lockdown had ended. I turned back around in time to step aside as the girl came lunging at me. She hit her head against the metal knob, and fell to the floor, unconscious. I shook my head; I had taken the girl during my initial rage at John. As revenge. Tit for tat. But now that I had Beverly back, I might as well just give her back too. I dragged her back into the room, and shut the cell door behind me. She had a toilet and enough food and water for now. She'd survive.

I opened the door to my room slowly. I stared at the pink hearts on the door as it swung. Beverly awaited me. I had to go see how she was.

I stepped outside into the corridor and stumbled as I tripped. There was smoke everywhere, making it hard to see and a whiff of something that made me dizzy. I bent down and realized I had tripped over someone lying on the floor. It was Kyle. He looked—I reached down for his neck, feeling for a pulse where there was none. I got up slowly. The smoke had cleared. Everyone was there, in the room. They were all dead.


End file.
